Weeks 1–2
Pain
Calm it down, both times.
Before surgery we settle the pain that is limiting you now. After it, hands-on work manages swelling and guarding from your first visit back.
What We Treat
Pre and post surgery physical therapy in Morris Plains.
Whether the operation is next month or last month, the weeks either side of it decide the year that follows. We plan both halves properly.
Sound Familiar?
Does this sound like you?
- Surgery is on the calendar, and nobody told you what to do with the weeks before it
- You came home with a printed sheet of exercises and nobody to check your form
- The joint has been guarded so long that the muscle around it has gone quiet
- Measuring your bend every morning, and getting the same number three days running
- Hauling on the handrail to get up your own stairs, one step, one leg at a time
- Cleared to walk, with no idea how much walking is too much
Two or more? Keep reading.
Why It Happens
Surgery fixes the structure. It doesn’t rebuild the strength.
By the time an operation gets scheduled, the joint has usually been sore and protected for months. Motion is already limited, the muscle around it has already faded, and the rest of the leg has learned to work around it. Surgery repairs or replaces the structure. It does not hand back the range or the strength, and swelling and pain in the first weeks after actually switch that muscle off further. Scar tissue also lays down early, which is why the motion you win at the start is easier than the motion you chase later.
So the operated joint is only part of the story. The hip above it, the ankle below it and the other leg all changed how they work while you were limping, and they do not change back on their own. That is what a cause-first evaluation sorts out: what you bring into surgery, what came out of it, and which link has to be rebuilt in what order.
The Honest Truth
The window around surgery doesn’t stay open.
If you keep waiting
- You go into the operation weaker and stiffer than you had to be
- Motion lost in the early weeks after is harder to win back later
- Guessing at your own exercises means guessing at how hard is too hard
If you start now
- You walk in knowing the exercises, the crutches and what week one asks of you
- Swelling and range get managed while it counts the most
- You get a plan with an endpoint: your stairs, your car, your work, not an open tab of visits
Nobody regrets starting too early. Plenty of people regret waiting.
How We Fix It
The same four phases. Before the operation and after it.
Every plan has an endpoint. The four phases run twice: once to prepare you for surgery, once to bring you back from it.
Weeks 2–6
Prime
Win the motion early.
Prehab keeps the joint as mobile as it can be going in. Afterward we chase range inside your surgeon’s limits, while it still comes back easily.
Weeks 6–10
Perform
Rebuild what surgery cannot.
Progressive loading wakes up the muscle that switched off around the joint, until the leg holds your weight without a rail or a hand.
Weeks 10+
Prevent
Return better than before.
Stairs, driving, lifting and the demands of your job get tested under real load before you’re cleared to go all-in: that’s the endpoint, not just another appointment.
Extremely happy with physical therapy received at 10 on 10 after hip replacement. I can tell that I’m getting stronger after each session.
Shared by Roberta S. · Hip replacement
Starting physical therapy after a hip replacement
Stronger after each session, and she can tell
Hip replacement
Questions, Answered
What people ask before booking around surgery.
It is worth a conversation, and for many procedures it is worth the weeks. What you carry into the operating room is what you start your recovery with, so range and strength built beforehand are not wasted. You also learn the exercises, the crutches, the stairs and the bathroom while you are calm, instead of sore, tired and reading a handout. And for some problems a course of therapy is worth trying before you commit to an operation at all. Your surgeon stays in charge of that call.
Yes, inside the limits your surgeon set, and that is exactly where your plan lives. Early motion and gentle loading are how swelling drains and how the muscle switches back on, so protecting the repair and moving are not opposites. Soreness during and after a session is normal. Sharp pain, heat or a jump in swelling is information, not a setback, and it changes what we do next. You are watched the whole time, one-on-one with a Doctor of Physical Therapy, every visit.
You get that answer at your evaluation, not from a webpage. Your procedure and your surgeon’s protocol shape the phases, Pain, Prime, Perform and Prevent, and the timeline depends on the operation you had and the shape you were in going into it. Either way it is a plan with an endpoint: you will always know which phase you are in and what is left, not an open-ended string of appointments.
Book Your Visit
Ready when you are.
Request a time and a real person calls you back, usually within one business day. No phone tree. No ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.
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Hours Mon, Wed, Fri: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Tue, Thu: 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM - (973) 453-0488 Prefer to talk now? Call us.
- No referral needed in New Jersey
5.0 · 33 Google reviews
Typical response: within one business day
Step 1 of 5
Request sent.
That’s the hard part done. We’ll call during business hours to lock in your time and find you the earliest one that works.
Visit Us
Care this good, this close.
10 on 10 Physical Therapy
- 3025 NJ Route 10, Unit 1, Morris Plains, NJ 07950 (opens in new tab)
- (973) 453-0488
- Fax: (973) 394-2421
- enquiry@10on10pt.com
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Mon, Wed, Fri: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Tue, Thu: 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM